Plant Ideas for a Retaining Wall Garden

A retaining wall garden serves as decorative focal point to a home landscape. Retaining walls are designed to hold in soil and rocks on hillside properties, which not only serve a land-relief purpose, but also improves the landscape. A wide range of plants thrive in retaining wall gardens, from grasses and flowers to shrubs and trees.

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Jacob's Coat

Sometimes referred to as the copper leaf plant, Jacob's coat ordinarily serve as ornamental houseplants. They demand full shade and moist black soil. Incorporate their upright foliage and vibrant colour variations on the shaded shade of a retaining wall garden. Keeping copper leaf plants in a shady retaining wall garden works best if you live in U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) zones 10a to 11. Jacob's coat reaches about 6 feet in height in optimal environments and may need pruning to keep them out of the sun's rays. A small evergreen herbaceous foliage plant, Jacob's coat doesn't produce flowers. The colour comes from the foliage that produces shades of camouflage green, brown and burgundy on the same plant.

Passion Flower

A woody, perennial vining plant, passion flowers thrive in tropical and subtropical climates. When grown against the bottom level of a retaining wall garden, passion flowers climb upward to create extra texture, colour and scent for the environment. Depending on the variety of passion flowers grown, some produce flowers and some produce edible fruits. The flowers vary in colour from vibrant shades of green and purple to bold, striking tones of red and yellow. They grow wild in the southern U.S. and require partial sunlight to thrive.

Wild flower Assortment

Assorted wildflowers provide a retaining wall garden with colourful flora with which to cover the retained soil. The ledges of retaining walls serve as a flower bed whether wildflowers require full sunlight or shade. Wild flower assortments that thrive in the sunny areas of a retaining wall garden include poppy varieties, daisies, carnations, baby's breath, black-eyed-susans, indigos, snapdragons, sunflowers and zinnias. Scatter wild flower seed mixes, sold in packets, over the exposed soil areas of a retainer wall garden to produce a colourful array of blooms that add texture to the environment when grown with climbing plants and shrubbery.

Various wildflowers add colour and beauty to a retaining wall garden during the springtime. (orange wildflowers image by Jorge Moro from Fotolia.com)